As anybody that has even just a passing acquaintance with myself will testify, I am no stranger to elaborate eyewear. I give to you, exhibit A:
Exhibit A – the White RayBans
As well as my ubiquitous white Wayfarer specs, I’ve been known to dabble in other areas, such as frames hand-crafted out of real wood:
Exhibit B
and… well… you can see the next picture for yourself.
However, I would definitely not wear Google Glass.
There’s no getting away from it: Google Glass isn’t all that pretty.
Pure aesthetic design reasons aside though, there are many reasons why Google Glass in its current form will fail to become an omnipresent part of our everyday lives. There’s a lot of talk about the ‘wearable technology’ such as fitness trackers and smart-watches – as well as their merits. Thing is, the one big difference between Google Glass and these other gadgets is that whilst the latter can be hidden away on a trouser waistband or under a sleeve, these tech-specs are planked right in the middle of your face.
This might still sound like it’s a complaint about looks, but bear with me here. If we accept that the technology involved will eventually develop to the extent that it can be incorporated easily into frames that people might actually choose to wear (and not to mention overlooking about the cardinal sin of wearing glasses without lenses), there are still issues with the widespread mainstream proliferation of sight-based technology such as Google Glass that is so visibly obvious.
Ehh, take that off and look me in the eyes please
There have already been stories of bars and businesses banning wearers of Google Glass – and for good reason. Ever been on a train or other public place and become aware of another person holding up their mobile in your direction? The inclusion of discreet cameras in phones has made us suspicious of people even when they aren’t necessarily engaging in anything untoward; the mere possibility that they could be sneakily taking a picture or video of us is un-nerving – and that’s the crux of the matter.
Whilst at least with mobile phones we have relative peace of mind given that they need to actually be pointed towards us in some sort of fashion to effectively record, Google Glass perfectly aligns with our field of vision – with the possibility of doing a whole lot more than just capturing potentially invasive moments. Rather than an addition to already existing features, the primary feature of Glass is to take in and analyse the ‘data’ of everyday life – and I simply don’t believe that it’s something that people will be prepared to accept. Even where people have ‘nothing to hide’ (and oh, how I hate that phrase), having the visible, perpetual presence of a device such as Glass will fundamentally alter the dynamics of every part of our face-to-face interactions… and not for the better.
The future of ‘wearable’ technology’
Don’t get me wrong, it is inevitable that integration with our eyesight is in the future of technology – it would be foolish to suggest otherwise. However, what most of the conversations by geeks and commentators foaming at the mouth fail to realise is that even Google Glass is in itself just a concept; not the determined shape of things to come. There will be a place for this sort of interface, but it has to intertwine so closely with the way we live to become forgettable… and thus, the future of wearable technology is not in high-tech specs. If you can offer me some invisible Google contacts, now then I might be interested…
Google Glass image by Stephen Balaban (iPhone at Hacker Dojo in Mountainview) CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
The post Google Glass: The Future is not High-Tech Specs appeared first on The Social Penguin Blog.
